Perhaps the clearest sign that the second annual Legend of the Motorcycle Concours d’Elegance has found its target audience occurs during trophy presentations.
A podium has been set up on the cliffs facing the Xanadu-like Ritz-Carlton Hotel at Half Moon Bay, 50 miles south of San Francisco on a gusty spring weekend. Emcee Alain de Cadenet invites the 6,000-strong crowd, who have braved the $50-$65 fee for this charity show (the Boys and Girls clubs of America, the Roots Initiative and Arzu, an Afgah Women’s Aid Association) to watch 31 judges hand out awards in 16 classes.
About 1,000 spectators drift over to the event, but most continue checking out the 300 motorcycles arranged in rows to the west, talking to the owners. The concours, after all, is about the bikes and organizer Jared Zaugg tops his inaugural Brough Superior celebration last year by luring 30 percent more spectators this time to view the 67 marques on display.
Where else can big-time collectors and the well-heeled from five Continents and judges from seven countries see 55 Vincents in one place? Every significant model is here — Rapide, Comet, Grey Flash, Black Shadow, Black Prince, even 10 Black Lightings — along with Godet and Egli specials and a couple of choppers, which provoke grumbles from purists.
The goal was to re-create the ritzy Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance some 50 miles down the coast. “We’ve established a world forum for motorcycles on a level previously associated with the motorcar,” said Legends organizer Jared Zaugg. “We created an international judging standard by emphasizing originality and authenticity.”
Pride of place has to go to Rollie Free’s Bonneville record-holder, which won the Sculptor’s Award. Free rode it 150 m.p.h. at Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats in 1948, famously attired in swim trunks and tennis shoes, stretching out over the back fender, having removed the seat to aid streamlining, shortened the bars and removed the footrests. He said he could have gone 151 m.p.h. without the tennis shoes, but photos suggest missing a few meals might have helped too.
Other featured marques this year are Excelsior, with 18 present, and Henderson, 16 of which were to hand. These giant American dinosaurs date from the dawn of the motorcycle age and both disappeared in the Depression. They were revived briefly in recent times, like Indian, but proved once again that making motorcycles profitably is not for the faint of heart or weak of wallet.
Indian is resurgent once again, in the hands of private-equity group Stellican Ltd., which also owns Chris-Craft boats. When the first bike is built sometime this fall, possibly November, it will be sold for charity by champagne makers Moet and Chandon, who promoted the revival. In a similar vein, the Brough Superior trademark is offered by Bonhams and Butterfields at their motorcycle auction on this Saturday. Sealed bids would be opened at later date to determine the winner, with conversations ongoing, according to Bonhams.
Auctioneer Malcom Barber calls Bonhams’ sale a success, with 80 percent of the 42 bikes offered selling for $840,000. Top prices are $93,600 for a magnificently scruffy 1914 Henderson 4-cylinder and the same for a garish, yellow 1929 Indian Scout with a Crocker overhead valve conversion. Both bikes go to England, demonstrating the power of $2 to the pound.
The effervescent Willie G. Davidson, who receives a lifetime achievement award at the concours, buys the bizarrely customized 1958 Harley-Davidson FLH “No. 1 Playboy Dresser” for $32,175, proving that survival as a manufacturer trumps design innovation. If he’s going to collect all the customized Harleys of questionable taste, he has a long road ahead.
Outside motorcycles on the velvet lawn range from beautiful and competition examples of well-known marques such as 23 Hondas and 20 Harleys, to rarities and oddities that stop even grizzled observers. Ducati designer Pierre Terblanche shows off the 2008 Hypermotard, an even leaner, more powerful street fighter.
Bonhams brings in the 1898 MMC Werner, which is considered to be the oldest bike in England and looks like a bicycle powered by a blacksmith’s idea of a motor built by a jeweler. Allen Seikman’s 1937 NKB is the only survivor of a little single built in Japan in 1937 and suggests somebody toured the DKW plant in Germany.
Otto Hoffmann’s 1957 TWN “twingle” was made in Germany by the Triumph company (no relation to the English one) and sent to Floyd Clymer, the U.S. motorcycle and automotive publishing entrepreneur, in case he would like to sell the brand. Though it took only a month to arrive, the manufacturer had already gone out of business.
Genial Dave Manthey shows off his 1971 Munch Mammut, which still dwarfs modern cruisers with its 4-cylinder, NSU automobile engine. Friedl Munch’s creations grew from 1,200 cc to as big as 2,000 cc in 25 years of erratic production, and Midwesterner Manthey is the world guru. He is thrilled to have just discovered another of the 260 built.
Two MTT Turbine bikes, looking like sport bikes for gorillas with exhausts like 88-mm cannon, catch the sunshine. Costing $150,000 and capable of 227 m.p.h., the only thing more alarming than the noise is reputed to be the fuel consumption. But if you have to ask … as they say. (OK, it’s about 5 m.p.g.)
In celebration of the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy centennial this year, a number of TT contestants are on display. World champion Giacomo Agostini’s 1966 TT-winning MV Agusta 500 draws an excited crowd as it’s fired up on rollers — bikes must runto be judged.
Most trophy winners are pushed up the steep ramp to the podium but a few bold riders roar up to applause. Perhaps the most striking is Aude Ragey, a young Frenchwoman with long dark hair, black leather jacket and knee-high boots.
She’s here from Paris with her family and rides her grandfather Roger Loyer’s Velocette KTT MK VII, on which he finished ninth in the 1938 Junior TT. “It took us 40 years to find it,” says her mother Annie Rageys. “My husband, Pierre, took it apart and cleaned it — and here it is.”
Best of Show goes to Mike Madden’s immaculate 1915 Henderson Long Tank 4-cylinder. As the crowd thins in the gusty afternoon sunshine, he casually rides away.
Norton and MV Agusta will be featured at the 2008 Legend of the Motorcycle May 3.
